What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up...........

What do I want to be when I grow up?  Just a short while ago that wouldn't have been a questions to enter my mind.  But it is now.........  And my first response is Ron Scrogham.  Unless you were blessed to have been a student / parent / teacher at St. Pius X High School the name Ron Scrogham will mean absolutely nothing to you.  But amazingly most people who get the opportunity to know him will tell you the same thing, they what to be him when they grow up.  He's scarily smart, but never makes you feel stupid or a lessor human, he's extremely well traveled, multi-lingual, unpretentious, and could probably give Miss Manners some additional lessons in etiquette - but would do it so subtly she wouldn't even know she'd been schooled.  How often do you find an individual that everyone looks up to?  I would love to grow up and be Ron Scrogham, but I've accepted the fact that won't happen, it's not in the cards.  I'll just have to be thankful he's a friend and always makes himself available for answering questions on ......... hmmmm, just about any subject.  Haven't hit on one yet that he's not been able to be helpful.

That's the big question these days.  What do I want to be when I grow up?  I accomplished my goals early on.  I always wanted to be a momma.  But just not any momma.  I wanted to be a GREAT Momma.  I wanted to love and be loved on.  I was blessed to have done a dang good job of that too.  And that reality is evidenced by the fact that my four birth sons still invite me to do things with them, and they still want to do things with me.  I still get emails and Facebook messages from their friends.  And when those friends come to town, it warms my heart beyond words when I get a phone call asking if they can stop by.  For future knowledge, I have a completely open drop in policy.  If you are in town, please STOP BY.

In two blinks of an eye life has changed exponentially.  These are the moments that you're never told about, until you're standing smack dab in the middle of it.  Kind of like childbirth.  You never hear those horror stories from loved ones and well meaning friends until you are days away from dropping that baby out of your womb room.  And that's definitely NOT the time you want to hear all the horror stories they've saved up to share until the last minute.  Couldn't they have mentioned it BEFORE you got pregnant?

That's how I feel about this new stage in life, "The empty nest syndrome".  It's true everyone handles it differently, but no one ever told me what it could be like.  It was like a secret initiation.  But you have to be waist deep in it before they say, welcome to the freakin club.  And trust me, this is definitely a club I would rather not have been a part of.  I've got friends who stocked their wine cellar just for the celebration they were going to throw when their kiddos left.  Once stood at the door waving goodbye with one hand to her beloved youngest while she was changing the garage code with the other.

I've always been one of those mothers who truly enjoyed being around her children.  And around all her children's friends.  And the friends of their friends.  My house couldn't be over filled with too many kiddos.  I was the cooking and baked goods queen.  I thrived on it!  Now all my boys are MEN people.  My job is done, they have all been taught to cook, bake, clean, iron, sew, change a tire, lend a hand, change a diaper, and be a good friend.  I am extremely proud to have raise no ones future horrible husband!  They are all doing well in their respective careers, or intended career paths.  But sadly, they truly don't need me anymore, but I'm blessed because the still WANT me.

Now my days are filled with more empty space than I ever imagined possible. When the boys were younger I would have paid to be able to have the opportunity to take a leisurely bubble bath, now I have the time but I don't because I'm a little fearful that if I get in there, there is a small but realistic chance I won't be able to get out - without help.  It's a dang big tub!  Once upon a time, I did a minimum of four loads of laundry a day and still had piles to work on over the weekend.  I could never catch up. Now I wander around the house looking for enough items I can throw in the washer to justify an entire load.

So for the time being, I'm going to keep my eyes open, my pickleball gear at the ready in my car.  I'm going to continue to make homemade lemonade, but now I'm going to add equal parts lemonade to Woodford Reserve.  And keep looking for what I want to be when I grow up. ~